I flew yesterday and had an interesting encounter. I accidentally had a small set of lockpicks in my jacket pocket. I'm always VERY careful to completely empty

I flew yesterday and had an interesting encounter. I accidentally had a small set of lockpicks in my jacket pocket. I'm always VERY careful to completely empty my bag after I accidentally brought a knife into the security area once a few years ago in my camera bag (which they found of course, but didn't give me much trouble about. I always keep one in my camera bag for cutting tape, wires, tree branches in photo shoots, opening packages, etc)- however I didn't check my coat this time as I was rushed. Opps. Anyway, I took lockpicks through. Of course they noticed them in the x-ray machine. The guy was super nice about it. He was like, "What are these?" and I responded, "Lockpicks. I just have them for practice on stuff and learning, I didn't mean to travel with them. I'm sorry if they are something that is contraband from carrying on airplanes and I totally understand if you have to keep them." The guy looked a little puzzled. "Like you use to start or open a car?". Now honestly I've never tried picking a car. I've tried picking my motorcycle when the key fell out once, but never a car. I say, "I guess you could, but I've never tried it." I was worried that he thought I was a car thief or something. He then said, "Oh, well I've been having this trouble with my car ignition. Its really lose. I've always carried heavy keys and I think its broken. Do you know anything about fixing it?" He was intrigued and just was curious. Not accusatory at all. I was kinda shocked. He looked at them and said, "They don't look sharp or anything. They should be fine. We let people carry through small scissors which are more dangerous than these because if you break them in two they are two small knives if they are sharp" He scanned them through the x-ray once more, and handed them to me and was asking a few other questions about good locksmiths in the area to fix his car. I apologized again for the trouble, but he said and this is the important part: "Look, I used to work for a prison. The security here is a joke compared to real security at prisons. These wouldn't get through there, but we let all sorts of stuff through that would probably get someone killed in prison fights or would be instantly contraband there." I'd thought about this before, but the bluntness and understanding that he had behind this was a real shock to me. I'd never thought that the airports were secure- but compare them to an actual 'secure' environment like a prison and they seem wide open. It is truly unfortunate that the higher ups at the TSA don't promote this guy to the top and have the same understanding as him. You're not making a secure place with these practices- you're making placebo. If we wanted real security EVERYONE would probably need cavity searches and no one could take anything at all onboard. I'm glad we aren't trying for that obviously.